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The Straw Hat Pirates

Episode #633

One Piece had a whole lot of interesting small moments in the last episode, though the one that really drew me in was watching Sanji getting taken in by the dancing woman who wants him to help her with a problem. That in itself is fairly straightforward, but I really liked the way the whole thing was animated, that it took the time for her to just dance and that they did it so well with the colors and look of it, even if it was One Piece’s version of fanservice. Something that the show, to me, doesn’t really do often and when it does do it, well, it just feels awkward. And that sequence certainly had that. Between that and seeing Sanji chasing his swords and getting more of Luffy making his way to the colosseum, we got the usual amounts of small progress.

Amusingly, now that Luffy has signed in to participate in the combat, he’s been knocked around a bit by Franky just for putting his real name on the signin, which is a no-no considering the stakes. That he signs in as Lucy after half writing his name is just priceless. His exposure to those in the games that will be coming is simple and straightforward as he gets to hang out with the other gladiators that we got to see some of previously and he’s just in awe of them all since there are so many interesting types in there. But a lot of it, at least just due to the scale of it, involves a lot of people much bigger than him and full of muscles and not much in the way of brains going by the initial viewing of them. Not that your usual gladiators will be much of a problem for him by any stretch, and seeing him make a good first impression there sends a great little wave of panic through most of the competitors. As it should.

That, naturally, gives us a small look at some of the others who do have power that are watching in the shadows waiting for their turn that you know will take up positions of importance as the games – and the arc – goes on. We get a fair number of introductions here from different areas of the world that have ended up in this place, and it’s rather welcome to see that they defend Luffy against ejected because of the unauthorized fight that he got into since the other guy started it. But also because they want their shot at him as well since they’re interested in him. There’s some decent bits of information that comes from the introductions as we see things settle out and that all leads towards getting us out into the arena itself, which is starting off with a kind of battle royal with a lot of the participants that are being surrounded by some deadly fish. Fun all around!